The following is from an editorial in the Los Angeles Times:
Finally, meaningful new guidelines have been written to stem the overuse of antibiotics on livestock. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed new animal-husbandry practices that would phase out the routine use of medications like tetracycline and penicillin if the drugs are considered medically important for humans.
The lavish use of antibiotics among livestock operations — 80 percent of all antibiotics are fed to food animals — has contributed to the rise of resistant infections that are difficult, expensive and sometimes impossible to treat. A September report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed resistant infections sicken 2 million Americans annually, killing 23,000 of them and adding $23 billion annually to the nation's health care costs.
Many consumers aren't aware antibiotics are added to feed to make cattle, pigs and other animals grow faster and to prevent disease from sweeping through crowded, unsanitary pens.
The guidelines call for banning the use of medically important antibiotics as growth promoters and ending all over-the-counter sales; a veterinary prescription will be required. Animal farms could use these medications only when a veterinarian determines the animals are at high risk of infection. Even then, drugs are supposed to be limited to at-risk animals, not all the animals in a facility.
The new guidelines are voluntary. We would rather they were law, but there is ample reason to think they will be widely followed. The two pharmaceutical companies that manufacture most of the affected veterinary antibiotics have signed on to the plan and have said they will change their labeling. Existing laws barring off-label use of veterinary drugs would then make it virtually illegal to use them for growth. Trade groups for pork, chicken and beef producers also have come out in support. The agency has made it clear that if antibiotic use doesn't drop, it will develop rules with teeth.
In the absence of federal law, the FDA has produced a useful template for keeping these crucial drugs effective for humans.